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HIGH set 



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IN LOOISIANA 



AND 



TDLiNE OMIYERSITY. 




WM. PRKSTON JOMNSTON 



NEW ORLEANS: 

J,. CKAHAM S: SON, PRINTE.KS. 

1S93. 



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HIGH SCHOOLS IN LOUISIANA 



AND— y' 

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jUL26l893,.yj 



TaLiNE ONIYERMY. 



WM. PRKSTON JOHNSTON. 

V 



NEW ORLEANS; 

L, GRAHAM & SON, PRINTERS. 

1893. 



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8 



THE DEMAND FOR HIGH SCHOOLS IN LOUISIANA. 



ADDRESS OF 
PRKSIDENT WNl. PRESTON JOHNSTON, 



TO THE 



CONVENTION OF PARISH SUPERINTENDENTS, AT LAKE CHARLES, 
LOUISIANA, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1893. 



Gentlemen — The invitation from the State Superin- 
tendent of Public Education to address you on " The Demand 
for more High Schools in Louisiana" met an immediate 
response in my breast. It is a subject that has been near my 
heart for the last thirteen years, and I have awaited anxiously 
the hour when the public mind could be aroused to a sense of 
its exceeding importance. Indeed, next to the establishment 
of a great central university, diffusing light and knowledge and 
stimulating intellectual activity in every department of life, a 
general system of Public High Schools seems to me of para- 
mount importance to the interests of education in this com- 
monwealth. Without criticising the benevolent intention and 
the excellent results of the magnificent endowment of Mr. 
Peabody for public schools, I have often thought that its 
achievements would have been still more fruitful and inspiring 
if its large expenditures had been concentrated upon a cer- 
tain number of Graded High Schools or Academies, centres of 
light, so that in each State there might have arisen seven 
golden candlesticks, as it were, shining with the splendor of 
eternal truth and guiding the feet of the young in the ascend- 
ing pathways of knowledge. Without the High School we have 
no bridge or causeway across the chasm between the low- 
lands of the Primary Schools and the heights of Collegiate edu- 



4 High Schools in Louisiana 

cation. That such a connecting link is necessary is readily 
demonstrable, if we attach any value to the Higher Education. 

Without going into details it may be said that all education 
that prepares for active life can be graded into Primary, 
Secondary, Collegiate and University education, the last includ- 
ing professional studies. These grades rest upon each other 
in regular sequence, and any attempt to evade or skip this 
natural succession is surely punished by an imperfect and 
fragmentary preparation, which shows itself in weakness 
somewhere in later life. The house must be built upon a rock 
or it will not stand. Education must rest upon a solid basis of 
thorough preparation, of early discipline, of a continuous 
advance, or it will lack that essential something which makes- 
the all-round man so formidable to every opponent. 

The Primary School is for all the people. It teaches what 
no one can do without and yet be up to the full measure of cit- 
izenship. To know how to read, to write, to count, to calcu- 
late; to have at least a glimmering of the great world we live in 
and of the human family that inhabits it; this much, at least, 
society owes to every human being that it intends to hold re- 
sponsible and expects to be useful. Even among the stolid 
Orientals we find this much knowledge conceded as a neces- 
sity, and much of it generally diffused among all classes. But 
upon those subject masses there is no demand except for obe- 
dience, while with us society continually calls upon its humblest 
members for the performance of duties that require much in- 
formation that comes from instruction and a sound discretion 
that is the result of training only. But I am not here to argue 
for general education before this intelligent body committed to 
its service. 

It is the demand for High Schools — the need of this second- 
ary grade of education — that I am now advocating. And in 
this cause, too, I may presume that my audience is generally 
in sympathy with my views ; but, as it is almost a new feature 
in Louisiana, the discussion of it may not be unprofitable. 
And the first point that arises is, why should there be Public 
High Schools at all? Why should not public education stop 



AND Tui.ANE University. 5 

at the close of the primary grade; or if it is to go on, why 
should the people concern themselves with the ques- 
tion? Wliy not leave it to parents? Why not leave 
it to private benevolence or private enterprise? I think 
I might claim that all these questions are already prac- 
tically settled as facts in American poHty by the sure, the in- 
evitable trend of public opinion. They have been argued be- 
fore that high tribunal for half a century, and may now be con- 
sidered res adjudicata. Other commonwealths have repeat- 
edly gone over the ground; and, in the end, it always turns out 
the same way. The decision is in favor of giving every child 
a chance to develop all that is in him. The graded High 
School is everywhere built upon the broader basis of the pri- 
mary schools, and has become an important part in the school 
system ol every progressive State in the land. If the weight 
of authority counts for anything this consensus of opinion 
among American educators and legislators should have settled 
the question of the need of High Schools. 

The same evolution has been going on for nearly a cen- 
tury in Europe. In Germany it has proceeded slowly, as one 
might expect among a slow-going, but sound thinking, people; 
yet thoroughly, so that educated men abound there, and Ger- 
many supplies other countries with both thinkers and leaders 
in business. Even in conservative England the great battle 
has been virtually won, and no one doubts now that free gen- 
eral education will soon be granted to the whole people. 
England has, however, always recognized the benefits of higher 
education, and her secondary schools are of ancient date. But 
it is in France that the most wonderful awakening has taken 
place. Imperialism was a nostrum to delude the people into 
the belief that despotism and democracy are one. Its essence 
was the right to declare by universal suffrage, not who should 
be ruler, but that the incumbent was master by right. It was a 
fraud and had to perish. But while it lasted, it juggled with 
education as with everything else, and left it rotten and moul- 
dering in France. France was overthrown by Germany in a 
titanic struggle. To what was the victory due? Everybody 



6 High Schools in Louisiana 

saw that the superior education of Germany was at the bottom 
of itr Von Stein, the great statesman of education, had organ- 
ized victory; and sixty years later Bismarck and Von Moltke 
achieved it. All France saw, with the lightning intuition of 
that 2jreat people, that a nation must be educated from the bot- 
tom up, as the only sure way to make it great and powerful; 
and so France adopted a system the most radical and far-reach- 
ing ever yet attempted. The republic had the courage of its 
convictions, and, with the exhaustive and unerring logic of the 
Gallic mind, established a system of education, the free st and the 
most searching, systematic, thorough and complete among civil- 
ized nations. But where was the money to come from for such a 
work? When you are bound to have a thing you are apt to get 
it. Taxation till the mossbacks groaned and sweated, debt till 
the eyes of financiers stretched with wonder; but the work went 
on. A generation has passed; a new France has been born; 
the republic is stronger than ever before. France is richer and 
more powerful and no man sees the end, but it certainly has a 
hopeful outlook for the French people and the human race. 
Now in that French system the High School and the College are 
considered as much a part of what the State owes to its chil- 
dren as the Primary Schools. Nothing in the way of free edu- 
cation is too good for the child of France; and so it should be 
here. 

But we need no appeal to authority, to precedents in other 
States or other nations. Our whole theory of government, with 
the application to it of the law of common sense, justifies the 
High School as part of our public school system; indeed, re- 
quires it. Persons are not wanting, it is true, who, while ad- 
mitting that the State owes the rudiments of an education to 
ever}^ individual, still claim that it owes no more and ought to 
give no more. I have given you the answer of the civilized 
world to this proposition, but we may as well look at it from 
our own point of view. Why do we owe any child anything? 
Society, represented by the organized State, owes the child an 
education, not on the broad, philanthropic ground that it is a 
child, but because it is a child of the State. It belongs not 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 7 

only to its parents, but also to the State into which it is born 
and of which it is a member. It can not disengage itself from 
these obligations while it continues in the State. Nor can the 
totality of society, the State, free itself from its whole responsi- 
bility to that child. 

Nobody doubts the duty of parents to their child. It is 
also generally conceded that every one should strive to fit him- 
self for the best work he is capable of in the world, and do it. 
That seems to be the plain meaning of the parable of the ten 
talents. But it seems clear that parents can not owe a less care 
to the development of their children than to culture of them- 
selves. If existence is to be a blessing instead of a curse, it 
must come from a growing, not a stunted, nature. But 
the case is even stronger, in some aspects, with the State than 
with the family; for the family may dissolve into its individual 
components and form new combinations, father and son gov- 
erning each his own household. Abraham and Lot separated 
and yet lived in peace. But when a child is born, it is at once 
a member of the body politic, as much as your hand is a part 
of your body, and it must be cherished to usefulness and 
honor, or cut off and cast out, to the maiming of the whole 
body. By all means then train the child to do its full part as a 
useful member of the State. 

But if we look at the question, not merely as Christians 
and gentlemen, from the point of view of duty, but as political 
economists from the side of self-interest only, we must see that 
it is profitable to the State to teach the young all they are will- 
ing to learn. There is an old aphorism that knowledge is 
power. Of course, it is power. It is power for good, or for 
evil, as the case may be. Those who assume that moral eleva- 
tion necessarily follows acquired information err, as we all 
know. Give an Indian a gun and teach him how to shoot it, 
and you simply make him a more dangerous enemy, though 
not a worse man. He merely has more power. Now if you 
can train his heart and mind not to use it for murder, he 
becomes a better, as well as a stronger man. You can not 
have failed to notice how modern mechanical skill has multi- 



8 High Schools in Louisiana 

plied the agencies of destruction, poisons, gunpowder, dyna- 
mite, etc. But crime has not measurably increased; or, if it 
has, it is not from that cause, but from the immunity ac- 
corded evil doers. We can not limit the knowledge of evil 
or the power of evil to do its wicked work, except in one 
way, and that is by training the minds of our youth in the 
knowledge of good and their wills in the powei- of good 
to overcome evil. Thus comes Wisdom, which is the fear 
of God; and education is the appointed means. The best 
police force ever devised is a healthy, resolute, moral pub- 
lic opinion; a sentiment and a determination to have good 
laws and to execute them; and this comes through the 
enlightenment afforded by general education. A public 
opinion that is truly moral and executes the statutes that embody 
it would virtually extirpate crime. It would make the life of 
the community like the life of a good man, which is conformed 
to the law of God, not because he fears, but because he loves 
that law. A community educated in virtue and knowledge 
could thus afford to be a law unto itself. It would need no 
courts, no police, no jails. It would save money, and what is 
better than money. But that would be the millennium. We 
shall not see it. No, we shall not see it. But we can start for 
so good a goal. x\nd the first thing to do is to put up a school 
house, and the next thing to do is to put up another school 
house. And when we have a group of these which have taught 
the children what they ought and can teach them, we should 
have a High School that will teach all who wish it something 
more. It is this " something more " that counts. 

But how much attention and care does society owe the 
child? Why is not that Primary School enough? If we were 
told that parents owed it, as a duty to their children, to teach 
them to crawl, but not to walk, we would smile at the absurdity. 
If we were told that they owed it to their children to keep them 
from starvation, but not to nourish their bodies to the full 
fruition of physical well being, we would see the fallacy. But 
when we are told that the State should teach its citizens just 
^enough to lift them above the level of barbarism, but not 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 9 

^enough to compete in the raceol civilization, we listen placidly 
to such false philosophy. What we should do, and I 
lay down the proposition broadly and boldly, is, in our 
system of public education, to afford every boy and 
girl the opportunity of developing every intellectual 
faculty to its highest point of efficiency. DeTocque- 
ville, more than half a century ago, said: "A middling 
standard is fixed in America for human knowledge," thus 
pointing out that in the United States there was danger that a 
generally diffused, unaspiring education would lead to a 
deadening mediocrity. Primary education hardly rises as 
high as the dull, dead waste of mediocrity, which is not con- 
sonant with a high civilization, but it lifts the general level and 
imakes possible still higher attainments. No true American 
will rest content with mere mediocrity as the destiny of his 
family or his country. To be the best should be his aim. 
Even the High School, in itself, only rises above the plain as a 
range of undulating uplands looks down upon the far stretch- 
ing prairie flats. If we would command the horizon from 
mountain heights, we must journey onward and upward along 
those rugged pathways of knowledge that the experience of 
-centuries has traced for the learner. It is from these pilgrims 
— mountain climbers — that come the gifts of trained intelligence 
to their fellow men. There can be no progress without great 
intelligence in the leaders of a people ; its statesmen, warriors, 
thinkers, teachers, jurists, mechanics and merchants. The 
glimmer of untrained platitudinous dullness, like the phos- 
phorescent wave of the sea, can not light the way of a nation 
to progress and honor. But genius, exalted by the lessons of 
patriotism and educated to its fullest powers, stands, Hke the 
stars in the firmament, as an unfailing guide. Light comes 
from above. Every nation has seen this; and hence the 
university, not the common school, has been the starting point 
in education. But the common school is the logical evolution 
of the university. Still, this common school, if its throb were 
felt in every household, would achieve little for a people, unless 
they aspired to something better. Look at those sects, like 



10 High Schools in Louisiana. 

the Shakers, who despise worldly knowledge ; good, moral in- 
dustrious, thrifty, yet living lives utterly monotonous and futile. 
Imagine a Shaker poet or orator ! The State can not rest upon 
a diffused protoplasm of rudimentary information in the people. 
Into this mass must penetrate vivid thought that it may blossom 
and bear fruit in higher intelligence, thoughtful men and women. 
We can not build on a quagmire, di prairie tremblante; we must 
build upon the solid rock of sound knowledge. We must have 
a good foundation on which intellectual strength and aspira- 
tion can rear a structure of useful citizenship. This we get in 
a system in which higher education rests on general education 
— the pedagogic pyramid. 

When we think what science is doing for the well being of 
man we can only wonder that there is not a more general effort 
to master it in some of its branches. The College pays; the 
High School pays. Suppose we had to-day a High School in 
ever)' parish, nearly sixty in all, that cost annually $5000 each, 
a total, say, of $300,000 a year, and out of the six or eight thou- 
sand pupils, one youth of genius should receive the inspira- 
tion, the divine impulse, to look below the surface of things and 
should discover a method that would save a quarter of a cent 
per pound in the manufacture of sugar, then his work would 
pay back every year more than four times the cost of every 
one of these High Schools. Or let us suppose him to become 
an engineer; then his skill rightly applied at the proper moment 
may prevent or arrest a dangerous crevasse and a destructive 
overflow. Our educated young men are now doing just such 
work as this every day. When a great bridge is thrown across 
the mighty Mississippi to carry enormous railway trains, we see 
the significance of scientific engineering; but there is not a train 
that hurtles through the silence of the night on which educated 
skill has not lavished its accumulated treasures. But from the 
narrow confines of the High School may issue not only the men 
who mark the material progress of the age with monuments of 
granite and iron, or who curb the torrent or harness the light- 
ning, but those also who transcend time and space on the wings 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 11 

of the spirit, breathe immortal words or receive the inspiration 
to deeds that will never die. 

I could stand here all day and illustrate to you that educa- 
tion pays; but why should I weary you with these things? 
They simply mean that every time the State properly educates 
a youth it renders him a more efficient factor in its scheme of 
civilization, and makes possible the enfranchisement of a human 
soul for its best work. And this can only be effected by the 
Higher Education, to be gotten somehow. This is obtained 
most surely and cheaply and easily through the High School 
and the College, though not alone thus; but, at all events, it 
should be obtained. The High School pays. Hence, in what- 
soever light we look at it, the State should have its High 
Schools. 

We are sometimes told we should educate only those boys 
in the High School who are fitted for it by position; a euphem- 
ism which means those who can pay for it. But that is not 
the true test. We owe respect to thrifty men who take care of 
number one and can pay their way; but the Creator does not 
give them everything, and their children are not necessarily 
the brightest, nor do they always become the best citizens. 
We need not trouble ourselves about these. They can take 
care of themselves. They should pay their taxes, and their 
children should have as fair a chance as anybody's; but as the 
lightning strikes where least expected, so the gift of extra- 
ordinary intelligence descends, not where man arranges for it, 
but where God wills. Hence it is from among the many, not 
from among the few, that the immortals spring. In all France, 
with its traditions of centuries and its swarming millions, there 
was no Napoleon; but from a barren rock in the sea he strode 
to imperial heights. Who could have predicted Lincoln or 
Jefferson Davis? Who* can now say what subtle brain will 
solve the next great problem of light, or electricity, or aerial 
navigation? Provide for all, and you can make no mistake. 
The thousands who accomplish little will be more than counter- 
balanced and paid for by the few who achieve great things. 

The High School raises the ideal of the Primary Schools, 



12 High Schools in Louisiana 

so that where you have the best High Schools you find teach- 
ers and children in the Primary Schools stirred to a fuller sense 
of the value of education and most anxious to attain it. If 
then it helps all the youth of the State, and greatl}^ profits a 
limited number, who become the advance guard of progress, 
and if it pays the State in better citizenship and increased 
economic production, it behooves the State to see that all its 
sons and daughters have all the education they will accept. 

But if society owes to its members the completest develop- 
ment possible to them and is rewarded in proportion to its 
fulfilment of this duty, and if the State is to perform this func- 
tion through its public schools, primary and secondary, and, 
when not otherwise provided, through colleges and universities, 
the practical question arises in what manner shall it most effec- 
tively carry out such a system of public education. But in the 
answer to this question is involved the entire subject of the 
relative value of centralization and local self-government. 

Primarily the state represents organized society. It is the 
sole autonomous political unit. In it is reposed the supreme 
power, the right and responsibility of action that springs from 
conscious social volition. This we denominate sovereignty. 
The expression of this volition, of the sovereignt}^ must be 
through human agencies, which, in their interaction, constitute 
the form of government. In our American system, the supreme 
will of the State prescribes for the officials administering the 
government fixed limitations of power which are contained in 
the organic law. This organic law is set forth in the Constitu- 
tion of the State and of the Constituticn of the United States. 
The theory of a democratic republic rejects the idea of irre- 
sponsible power lodged anywhere, and goes further and re- 
tains in the hands of the people, of the commune, the parish, 
the school district, as reserved rights', all the functions of ad- 
ministration that can be so retained without manifest detriment 
to the general welfare. Home rule, local option as to all local 
questions, self-government of each community is theoretically 
and practically the moving, vital principle of American democ- 
racy. You must know that. In its larger form of State sov- 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. * 15 

ereignty, some of you have fought and bled for it; all of 3'ou, 
I trust, believe in it. 

If it is proposed, at any time, for the United States to ex- 
ercise a doubtful power, all the country is alert as to the de- 
cision, and properly so. So, too, not only in questions of legal 
power, but of expediency, the burden of proof is on those who 
would claim for, or entrust to, the State government or any of 
its officials, powers, responsibilities, administrative functions, 
that can be exercised by local communities, b}^ the parish, or 
the school district. The claim that a central power is more en- 
ergetic and efficient is not really valid. For an emergency and 
spasmodically it may be so, but not for a system that reaches 
each individual in the community. In such a case the nervous 
force must spring from the real source of the social life, indi- 
vidual and local action. Of such a sort is the educational sys- 
tem, which crosses every threshold and feeds the flame on 
every family altar. Its administration is a reserved right of the 
people, of the community, who should not be absolved from 
exercising it. Its general features, of course, must be directed 
by the will of the whole people of the State, and this is repre- 
sented in a central bureau and board; but the details of the 
system should be in the hands of the local authorities. I beg 
that you will pardon this seeming digression, but it is well 
sometimes to recur to the principles on which our action is 
founded, and this appears to me to be such an occasion. 

Now then to come down to the practical question of how 
the public schools can best be maintained and rendered most 
efficient, it is to be considered whether it is advisable that the 
State shall tax its citizens and collect into the State treasury a 
sufficient fund to maintain the schools, and then through a cen- 
tral agency disburse this fund. If so, then logically it should 
also appoint the teachers and direct all the details from its cen- 
tral bureau. Such is, in effect, the continental scheme of Eu- 
ropean education ; but, it is repugnant to our theory of govern- 
ment, and, though it may promote a greater temporary energy* 
yet in the long run it weakens the springs of self-government 
and relaxes the self-reliance and initiative vigor of a people. 



14 High Schools in Louisiana 

The citizens of the locality must carry on the work of educa- 
tion for themselves ; often badly without doubt, carelessly, 
blindly, ignorantly, inefficiently. But strength comes with do- 
ing and vision with seeing. They will do better and better, and 
you will find the schools improving, as they have been improv- 
ing, until we can point to a system on a par with the best in the 
land. I am not willing to admit that we are behind the best com- 
munities in native intelligence or intrinsic worth, and if I do 
not claim that we are superior to many, it is because I am too 

Dolite do so. 

ji 

Some years ago when I was looking into this matter of 
public school education I found that Massachusetts, w^hich, 
candidly speaking, we are bound to put in the forefront in 
educational work, collected and paid out for education through 
her State treasury $150,000, while the local authorities ex- 
pended on the public schools $5,000,000; and that is about the 
proper proportion. Every community must work out its own 
salvation. The people must rely on themselves. The parish 
authorities must collect the lawful taxes and see to their proper 
expenditure. I am not going to quarrel with the inequalities of 
the present law. I know that much may be said on both sides, 
and the discussion is not particularly pertinent to my theme. 
But what I am now calling your attention to is that each parish 
must build up its own High School. Now, how are you going 
to do it? 

First, you must resolve to have your High School. You 
must go to the men who are in the habit of doing the thinking 
and work of the parish. We all know that there are a great 
many men who think and work for themselves alone, and a few 
men who, for one reason and another, think and work a great 
deal for the community. Go to these. Let them start the 
movement. Let them put the wheels in motion and appeal to 
the people for help. There are many persons who will aid 
measures that they would never have begun. There is one 
class much interested in this who are not altogether the easiest 
people to reach. They are well-off citizens with children. But 
they are a very important element of success, especially in the 



AND Tui.ANE University. 15 

poorer communities. I have no special contention with those 
who send their children away from Louisiana to educate them, 
though in the long run they are nearly always compelled to 
regret it. It is a matter that rests in the responsibility of the 
parent, and if he uses the same care and discretion in the se- 
lection of a school for his children that he does in caring for a 
favorite horse, he will do better than most of hiskind. But often, 
on very ill-considered advice, parents send their children at great 
expense to distant States to be taught by masters of whom 
they really know nothing. There they grow up without home 
ties, and most generally with most superficial instruction, under 
the nominal care of teachers who have small interest in them 
except for the wages received. Believe me, there is no super- 
vision like the parental. There is no school of virtue and honor 
equal to the family hearth. There was never a schoolmaster 
whose heart so yearned over an erring child as a good father's. 
There never was a nurse with touch as tender in the hour of 
illness as the mother's hand. Keep your boys and girls at 
home, or within easy reach when that is not possible. The 
links of early love, of home affection, are soon broken; the 
3^oung birds fly from the nest soon enough ; the hearthstone is 
left lonely, and across the threshold there falls a shadow. 
Keep your young ones with you until character has grown 
robust. Your home has its traditions. Likely enough luxury 
has not dowered it, distinction has not drawn to it the admir- 
ing gaze of alien eyes, nothing has marked it for the applause 
of the world. But you know that God knows that a sturdy 
virtue dwells there, honesty and courage and family affection 
and neighborly kindness and trust in man and reverence for 
woman and many thoughts that sweeten life ; and all these are 
constantly ascending, like winged messengers, to Him who 
sees and knows all things. My friends, you should realize that 
such a cottage home is a temple, and that the children brought 
up in it share in all its gracious gifts. Do not tear them from 
it for all the shallow veneering of distant boarding schools. It 
will be time enough for them to meet the world when they are 
men and women. When they reach years of discretion and 



10 High Schools in Louisiana. 

self-control they can be trusted at colleges and universities for 
further education. 

You must, if possible, enlist for the establishment and sup- 
port of your High School those who are best able to sustain^ 
it, and secure from them, if required, a special and extra con- 
tribution. But do not be discouraged if they hold back. The 
many can often achieve what the few will not dare attempt. 
You can make plain to the man with children that he can have 
a cheaper education for his children at his home academy than 
in a distant boarding school. Without counting the expense 
incident to a long journey and the return, the cost of a youth 
at school in the Middle States will average from $400 to $600, 
and in the Northeast from $800 to $1000. I am not talking 
about published statistics or exceptional cases, but how much 
the parent is out of pocket on an average. I warrant the 
average is not less than $500. If you will investigate every 
case within your knowledge, you will find I am not mistaken. 
Now, I ask how many children sent out of the parish would at 
that rate pay for a first class home High School in the parish? 
If these parents would add this sum to their tax this State 
would blossom with such well directed benefaction. And yet 
children who go abroad bring back little of value they could 
not learn at home, if you would build up good High Schools in 
your towns and villages. 

Mr. Paul Tulane told me that in the year 1818 he went 
from Nashville to Louisville to see the first steamboat arrive 
there. He was then a lad of 18. He said, '* I was the first 
one who got across the gangway. I saw on board of her Creole 
planters from Louisiana taking their sons to Bardstown, Ken- 
tucky, to be educated, and I wondered why they did not have 
a college at home." You see, he was born in Princeton. And 
then he added : " When I went to Louisiana, I determined, if 
I was ever able, to give them a college." 

But I am telling you how to go about getting High Schools, 
when there are many men in this, assembly, who with their en- 
ergy, business sagacity and local knowledge could get up a High 
School while I am talking about it. I am merely throwing out 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 17 

hints. When it comes to putting them into actuahties you will 
do it in the American way; that is, by availing yourselves of 
whatsoever means you have at hand and doing the best you can 
with these. Start your High School, bring to bear upon it the 
thought and aspiration of the community, and it will grow into 
its own proper shape, in accord with the life of the people 
from whom it springs. 

There is one danger you will have to guard against, the 
danger of delay. There are those who will admit to you the 
benefits of the High School, and yet will add : " Oh, they will all 
come in good time — when there is a demand for them." 
There is a demand for them now, in the truest sense. The 
need of them is the real demand. In education supply must 
precede demand. The ignorant are like the color-blind. For 
them the unknown does not exist. Provide the means of edu- 
cation and enough pupils will seek it. Most of those who 
would profit by it will do so; and this is true of college educa- 
tion also. There will never be a greater need than now. We 
can not afford to wait. Our sister commonwealths are stripped 
for the race, and we must not be laggards in this glorious con- 
test. Delay means losing the start and that means defeat. 
Besides, the children we are to look after are not that hypo- 
thetical class spoken of as *' generations yet unborn." Let us 
take care of the children who are here now, and they will take 
care of " generations yet unborn." 

There is one topic, possibly the most important of all, which 
I have not yet touchedj^^upon, and which, perhaps, should have 
been treated first of all, but there was no use talking about it 
unless you could get it. What sort of thing is this High School 
to be that ought to arise in each parish? In the first place it 
is a school that takes the child at 13 or 14 years of age, when 
it has finished understandingly the studies of the Primary 
School, and carries it on for several years more in higher 
studies adapted to its advancing age. The Primary School is 
to train and inform children ; the High School is for budding 
youth. They are planned for different stages of growth. But 
one great law should govern both, and that is that they are 



18 High Schools in Louisiana 

places for natural development, not hot beds, forcing houses, 
for precocious efflorescence and premature decay. 

The period during which the High School has the pupil under 
its control is the most impressionable and formative of his lile. 
Then he receives his bent, and, through conduct, crystallizes 
a character that may be modified but is rarely changed in after 
life. Home influences may enable him to resist injurious sur- 
roundings, but the environment will surely tell upon him as 
long as he lives. The elements of this environment are mani- 
fold ; home, teacher and companions being the chief. You 
make the home, you may regulate measurably his company 
and you select the teacher. In the school house the teacher 
is most important. He gives, whether he would or not, im- 
press and color to the character of all his pupils. You can 
not be too careful, then, in the man you select for teacher. 

First of all then he should be a good man. The 
approaches of evil are most insidious. A defect in the teach- 
er's character, like some fungoid blight or germ poison, often 
only reveals itself in the unconscious imitation of unfortunate 
pupils. A teacher may preach veracity, but if he does not 
practice it, he will have a schoolroom full of liars ; and so of 
other vices. The young are not so prone to imitate the virtues 
of preceptors, but they do first admire, then aspire to, and 
finally strive to copy the pattern of a worthy example. You 
want a man of learning. Shallow knowledge and scant knowl- 
edge will not do. The man to be useful must be an educated 
man, a trained man. He must have fullness of knowledge too. 
It is useless to say that it is hard to find such men. It is hard 
to get them to live on starvation wages when other communi- 
ties are bidding and begging for their services, but they can be 
had. He ought to have zeal also, ideals of scholarship, 
enthusiasm to sustain him in the drudgery of a trying career. 
This you need not expect if you engage some young man who 
is preparing for the bar, or the pulpit, or for medicine. If 
teaching is a mere bread and butter expedient, a stepping stone 
to something else, the teacher can not succeed. His heart is 
not in his task. Teaching ought to be the greatest thing in the 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 19 

world to the teacher. Personally I have the highest respect 
for eloquent preachers and learned judges and skilful physi- 
cians, but in my secret heart I can not help feeling that I have 
chosen the better part, and that my vocation goes nearer to the 
core of the matter in this world's progress than any of them. 
Otherwise I would not be in it. And the earnest men of each 
of these professions think the same of their own ; else they 
would be but bond servants to their calling, not the heirs of 
its adoption. 

Lastly, your teacher must be a teacher. He must be more 
than a scholar and an enthusiast and even than a noble exam- 
ple. He must know his business. He must know how to 
teach. Be sure to ask not only what he knows of studies, but 
how he has learned to teach. Find out whether he has care- 
fully studied the methods of successful teaching, or relies on 
main strength and awkwardness. It will be a great advantage 
to him if some practice and experience have given him an in- 
sight into human character, child character The teacher 
makes the school, and if you secure a first rate man, compe- 
tent in his profession, more than half your problem will be 
solved. Then treat him well. Keep him, dignify him, build 
him up, and your school will rise with him. 

You want a good graded school; and it should have its 
double aspect, looking in one direction toward the early en- 
trance on practical life by its pupils, in the other toward the 
higher and fuller development of the intellectual life in college 
and university. In either case, the chief fault I find in the 
studies of High Schools is that they try to teach too many 
branches of knowledge, and to go over too much ground in 
teaching them. The consequence is that the pupil enters col- 
lege or active life with only a vague understanding of what he 
has been going over. It is a shame on any High School for 
its graduate to leave, writing a bad hand, spelling incorrectly, 
mumbling or spouting instead of reading intelligently and effect- 
ively, and bungling over simple arithmetic. Yet such is not 
uncommonly the case. These are Primary School studies, it 
is true, and it is assumed that the pupil knows them. It is part 



20 High Schools in Louisiana 

of the business of the High School to verify this fact, to im- 
prove on it» and not to permit the pupil to forget what he has 
acquired. Still he must go forward; but his course should not 
gain speed at the expense of accuracy. Nothing is gained by 
it. The '* Repetitio" of the early Jesuit teachers has a pro- 
found meaning in it. Standing on the same ground until it is 
thoroughly understood and returning to it again and again in 
review is an absolute necessity lor permanent knowledge. The 
boy's mockery that places a book on top of his head, and says 
with solemn irony, '* I understand it," or bores a hole through 
it, and peeping cries out, ** I see through it," might teach the 
teacher. Thoroughness is the great lack of our schools, in 
spite of the time spent in them. And yet time is the must im- 
portant element in this thoroughness. Parents ask in regard 
to precocious children, " Can not my child go through these 
books in such a time." Yes, and say good recitations and 
pass fair examinations, and forget all about them in half a 
year. Time is required to ripen the grain and to mature the 
peach, but it is foolishly believed that the planted thought will 
spring in a night to the fullness of fruition. It might, if you 
wished a mushroom or a toadstool, but not if you are looking 
for the harvest or vintage. It is impossible. What you wish 
with the child is to induce it to think, because thought brings 
forth an hundredfold and of the best, if rightly directed, and 
that takes time. Therefore, do not be impatient with your 
children or with their teachers. 

We have published in our catalogue of Tulane University 
recommendations to teachers of High Schools for a course of 
studies and of the books to be used in them; and a similar one, 
with slight modifications, has been adopted by the Board of 
Education, in the excellence of which our faculty fully concur. 
But I should be glad to see the pupils of the High Schools kept 
four years instead of three, on these studies, that they might as- 
similate them into the very fibre of their thought. 

I do not come here to-day to exploit or commend Tulane 
University to you, in either its College or Post Graduate depart- 
ments. But we have claimed, and always sought, to make it 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 21 

the crown and culmination of the public school system of the 
State, to which it belongs. We recognize our duty to the High 
Schools, in so far as we are not fettered by charter restrictions. 
I do not go into details, for extensive publicity has been given 
to our efforts at encouraging them. We are in process of dis- 
continuing our own High School, in order to remove the mere 
suspicion of rivalry; we receive students from affiliated High 
Schools of recognized standing on their certificate of gradua- 
tion, and we offer scholarships with free tuition and $150 in 
money each to fourteen successful competitors in examinations 
for the Freshman class, distributed through the State and else- 
where. If other legitimate methods of aiding or encouraging 
the High Schools come to our notice, be sure we will cordially 
adopt them. All these details are, however, contained in 
pamphlets which are at your command. 

And now, gentlemen, after this rather long and prosaic 
discourse, which I have aimed to make as practical as possible, 
before closing permit me to add a word on your own high and 
responsible duties. I have been flattered by several invitations 
falling about this time, but I felt that in the great warfare 
against ignorance the most vital objective point in these latter 
days of June, 1893, was here in the town of Lake Charles, 
before this body of parish superintendents. You are not cap- 
tains of tens or hundreds, but of thousands. Your work is not 
to be measured by the humble frame-work of country school 
houses, or the more ambitious structure in the village, but by 
the seed you plant there. When you see the green blade peep- 
ing from the moist earth you can, in imagination, already behold 
the fields whitening with the full blown crops, and the fabrics 
of a miUion looms clothing the inhabitants of the earth with the 
product. So you can see in the beginnings of your school 
work a system widening, striking down into the hearts and 
minds of men, and rising higher in the sunlight of knowledge 
until all the land is aglow with its reflected splendor. 

But you cry out, "Alas, who am I, to do this thing?" It 
is a cry that has risen from my own heart a thousand times. 
But Peter the ^Hermit, a barefoot monk, roused up all the 



22 High Schools in Louisiana 

sleeping West to dare and die in the Crusades for the Holy 
Sepulchre. There was a truth at the bottom of his idea. The 
Moslem had put Christianity to the arbitrament of the sword, 
and unless Christians were willing to die for their faith it was 
not worth keeping. It is still marching on. One greater than 
Peter the Hermit, clad in camel's hair and feeding on locusts 
and wild honey, testified with his voice and with his blood to the 
truth of his mission. And the gospel of repentance is still a 
part ol every living Christian creed. One thing you can bring 
into the service of the State and for the upbuilding of this 
great cause. It is the spirit of consecration. Without it, all 
labor is vain; with it, nothing is impossible. For it is like 
those inflammable gases that, mingling with the common air, 
make the whole mixture explosive. But on these lines I need 
not dwell; you have proven by your works how much you are 
in earnest. Let the good work go on. Let us see Louisiana 
all she should be, and if our toil can help her, we shall have 
our exceeding great reward. I thank you. 



REPORT OF 
PRESIDENT WNI. PRESTON JOHNSTON 

COMMENCEMENT, JUNE 15, 1893. 



Mr. President i Adtiiimstrators of Tulane University : 

Ladies and Gentlemen — I have the honor to submit the 
following report for the session of 1892-93. 

Last year closed under the shadow of a great sorrow in the 
death of our friend and co-laborer, Dr. T. G. Richardson. He 
had toiled as a teacher and as the Dean of the Medical Depart- 
ment, and had given without stint his valuable counsel as a 
trusted member of the Board; so that when he went from 
among us we all felt it as a personal loss. A noble memorial 
of him has arisen in the new Medical Building, and through it 
his name will be linked for the future with that medical instruc- 
tion he did so much to advance and honor. It is not needful 
for me to add anything in regard to the Medical Department 
to what was said in the ample and elaborate report of its Dean, 
Dr. S. E. Chaille, on its Commencement Day, except to con- 
gratulate the Board on the extension and improvement of the 
department and its great success. 

When this session opened, our late President, General 
Randall L. Gibson, immediately came to New Orleans, bent 
on schemes for the development of the University. He earnestly 
impressed upon me that his time was short, his days numbered, 
and that he had hastened back to bring up arrears of work too 
long delayed and to carry out plans for that development of a 
great university which had been shaping in his mind since the 
first inception of the institution. To him, Mr. Tulane had 
chiefly entrusted the initiation and evolution of this important 
enterprise, and he felt his responsibility in the fullest sense. An 
outline of these plans he laid before this board, which, under 
the careful formulation of its present able president, have been 



24 High Schools of Louisiana 

put into practicable shape. During the first two months of this 
session, October and November, General Gibson exerted him- 
self with almost feverish energy in an attempt to secure suffi- 
cient land for the location of the University, and he only laid 
aside the work when summoned away on his last journey. In 
his dying hours, his anxious mind, and later on his incoherent 
thoughts, returned again and again to the upbuilding of a great 
University in New Orleans. He said not long before he died : 
*'Ihave spent my life in the public service and have done 
what I could, but it will all soon be forgotten. Will my work 
for Tulane University be remembered longer?" I think it 
will. The benefactors of education reap no rich rewards in 
present wealth or fame or public gratitude. Their gifts are 
accepted by the public as a matter of right. But the Teacher's 
Guild is a corporation that never dies, and, as it has little else 
to give except the widow's mite of gratitude, it pays its dues faith- 
fully, so that the benefactor's memory is kept green, when the 
ashes of the great and powerful have mouldered into dust. 
One would think that the heroic leader of Louisiana troops 
fighting for their rights, the wise statesman who helped so ably 
to recover the liberties of the State, the father of the Missis- 
sippi River Improvement, the guardian in Congress of every 
right and the protector of every interest of the Commonwealth, 
would receive from a grateful people some noble memorial of 
his services. I have no reason to think that he expected it. 
With his clear insight into human nature I feel sure he did not 
expect posthumous gratitude, which is too often the mere echo 
of the blatant vanitv of interested survivors. But there is one 
place where Randall Gibson's memory will be cherished, and 
that is Tulane University, for we know what he did for us. 
Paul Tulane made the University possible, but Randall Gibson 
gave it form and vitality; and his name will be joined with Mr. 
Tulane's in perpetual remembrance in its halls. 

In making this acknowledgment of the worth of our depart- 
ed friend, I must not be supposed to derogate from the unselfish 
labors of the members of the Board, who have freely given, 
without even the prospect or possibility of personal benefit. 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 25 

their time and toil to the interests of the University- Few- 
know, none can know so well as myself, how very heavy is 
the task imposed upon some of them and how great is the 
service they render. I can truly say that there are modest 
gentlemen on the Tulane Board who have never claimed credit 
for what they have done, without whose counsel and business 
ability and devotion to the interests of the institution, our suc- 
cess would have been impossible. Personally, I owe them 
many thanks for generous and considerate treatment and for 
strengthening my hands in my special duties. 

Every department of the University has increased in attend- 
ance of students except the High School, in which this year 
we have had 185, against 191 last year, a loss of 6. But the 
total attendance in all departments is this year 1415, against 
1284 last year, an increase of 131. In the University proper 
and College the attendance was 153, against 118 last year, the 
greatest increase being in the upper classes. 

Our libraries are doing good work. The total number of 
volumes contained in them is about 28,000, of which 4016 have 
been added during the past year, 2659 ^7 purchase and 1357 
by donation. The most important of these gifts was that ot 
Mrs. Norma Conrad, of 971 volumes, the library of her late 
husband, Mr. Charles A. Conrad. The books in our library 
are there for use, and the Free Reading Room extends a wel- 
come to all who seek its precincts. 

The chief addition to the Museum has been some excellent 
historical portraits of distinguished citizens. The people of 
New Orleans are hardly aware of the resources of our general 
Museum or of its Art annex, or they would avail themselves of 
its advantages more freely. It is open daily without charge, 
and an intelligent attendant gives the fullest information to all 
desiring it. 

I have already mentioned the Medical Department; the 
department next in seniority is the Law Department. The 
ability and eminence of its Faculty in the present and its pres- 
tige in the past secure it in this community all the considera- 
tion to be desired. Its recent growth and expansion have for 



2-6 High Schools in Louisiana 

some years been entirely satisfactory, though it is to be hoped 
the future has much more in store for it. Eight years ago it 
had twelve students and three professors; now its usual con- 
tingent is about sixty students, taught by five professors. The 
number of Louisiana students is limited by the needs of the 
bar, and I presume we have here all the earnest students who 
intend to practise law in this State. But students of the Tulane 
Law School should not be restricted to those who intend to 
remain in Louisiana. We have in Louisiana a system of iuris- 
prudence, based on the civil law and different from that which 
prevails elsewhere in the United States, though its influence is 
deeply marked wherever French or Spanish domination has 
once obtained, as in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Mis- 
souri, and California. This system rests upon the rational 
foundation of general principles settled in a civilized age and 
readjusted to modern conceptions in the Code Napoleon. The 
common law of England has been adopted as law by the other 
States of the Union, leaving out Louisiana, except in so far as it 
had been modified by statute. But this common law originated 
in the customs and codes of the barbarians, and grew into a 
most artificial system through the most diverse and contradic- 
tory influences. In this country, with more than forty legis- 
latures at work to fit it to local needs and transient conditions, 
the boldest and most illogical changes have been introduced 
into it. Hence the student who masters the common law of 
England is a very long way off from either the statutes or prac- 
tice of his State, and the same might be said if he were in 
Great Britain itself to-day, seeking admission to the bar. In 
New York the divergence w^as begun nearly fifty years ago, 
and the other States have been breaking away from the fold 
ever since. During all this time and for many centuries pre- 
vious, the chief modifying influence has been the spirit of the 
civil law, acting sometimes directly, but generally under the 
guise of what is called equity. 

Now, then, let us suppose that a student who intends to 
practise law in any ot those common law States desires a 
philosophical basis for his knowledge, a digest of principles to 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 27 

refer to and fall back upon in the discussion of the new ques- 
tions that are continually arising: where will he find it? Cer- 
tainly not in the statutes of his State, or in the decisions which 
cumber the wagon train of law reports that follows the courts in 
their annual progress. He can only learn to look at the law as a 
philosophical system by studying it as a science of comparative 
jurisprudence. He must look at any code under which he is 
to practise from the outside, from the point of view of another 
and, if possible, a more philosophical body ot law. Hence, 
if a young man wishes to be a great lawyer anywhere in the 
United States, he can not do better than learn the Civil Law 
as it exists and is practised in Louisiana, and as it is taught in 
Tulane University — and nowhere else. In any other State such 
instruction must be merely dilettante. But here the lawyers 
speak its language, breathe its atmosphere, and are saturated 
through daily use with its precedents and the principles which 
determine them. Hence, if students from other States would 
know^ the civil law, and they ought to, they should repair to the 
Tulane Law School to get what they want and what can be 
had nowhere else. 

I will not repeat the Commencement of yesterday, and tell 
what the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College is achieving. 
Go look at its beautiful grounds, its spreading live oaks, 
camphor trees and magnolias, its amply equipped laboratories, 
its stately College, its commodious annex just coming to com- 
pletion and containing the Art Room, Academy and Gymnas- 
ium. Consult its catalogue of students, mastering the higher 
mathematics, the upper reaches of Greek and Latin philology 
and literature, the modern languages in their purity of accent 
as well as in their best literary forms, philosophical history 
and the profoundest aspects of modern psychology. Half a 
dozen years ago tnis would have been treated as an idle dream 
in New Orleans, but it is reaUzed to-day, and I trust that the 
time is not far distant when the womanhood of this city will be 
as signally marked by its intellectuality as it is now by every 
feminine charm and every grace that adorns the sex. I beg 
you, my friends, that in your prayers and benedictions you will 



28 High Schools in Louisiana 

not forget the gracious and modest lady who has conferred 
this great benefaction upon our people. 

i come now to the academic side of this University whose 
Commencement we meet to celebrate. Since this time last year a 
great stride forward has been taken. The plan of development 
of the University has been definitely settled. The great Uni- 
versity dreamed of by Mr. Tulane and projected in our legis- 
lative charter, which was ratified by constitutional amendment, 
has taken final shape. Its germinal plan has opened up along 
lines which will be followed in all its future career. Its in- 
struction will be grouped into a College of Arts and Sciences 
and a College of Technology, and, it may be, hereafter, into 
other similar colleges. The proper instruction of the Univer- 
sity will be enlarged, encouraged and developed. Every ad- 
vantage will be given to well prepared students seeking the 
highest education here. There is a multitude of good institu- 
tions doing excellent teaching in the South. But it is our pur- 
pose to have here the best, and to give to those who really seek 
it a complete training and equipment for the higher works of 
the technical professions and that evolution which results in 
culture and the right and the power to live the intellectual life. 
We wish it distinctly understood that while we are training in 
our College a splendid body of young men, it is to the Univer- 
sity proper — the Department of Philosophy and Science — with 
its post graduate students, that we must look for the highest 
results. There are to be found those students who are wear- 
ing off the fine ^d.^^ of youth in the most profound and exact- 
ing tasks and investigations. They are those who know how to 
wait, who have the reserve power to see others step to the front 
and pluck the early rose of success, and yet still endure the 
weary vigil, the grinding task, the hope deferred. They are 
the athletes of thought. When they are graduated, we truly 
call them Masters. The word has a meaning to it. 

Our progress has been very encouraging in the past year. 
The number of our College students has increased 22 per cent., 
while our University students have more than doubled. Of 
course, this is due in part to the liberality of the University 



I 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 29 

authorities, who have greatly favored such students. Next year 
our Board offers to University students, graduates of our own 
and other institutions, fifteen scholarships, covering free tui- 
tion and an honorarium of $150 each; such students to be se- 
lected for merit. 

And here I may commend this fact to those grumblers 
who complain of this State institution, as if it were a parasite 
in the communit}^ Here we have $2250 in actual money paid 
out for the support of the very best class of students, those 
who have won their way almost within grasp of the topmost 
round of the ladder. Then we are teaching this year on free 
scholarships 145 pupils, whose tuition at current rates would 
amount to $11,600. I make no account of the instruction to 
more than 400 students in the Free Drawing Classes this year: 
the total number of these for the past eight years being over 
3000. And we surrendered to the State a constitutional appro- 
priation of $10,000 per annum. 

But we are making material progress as well as educational 
advancement. We are taking steps to remove in the immediate 
future to a more suitable location, with appointments better 
fitted to our work and outlook ; but with all this you have been 
made fully acquainted through the public press. We hope for 
great benefits to the University from this change. More com- 
modious and beautiful buildings, adapted to the latest require- 
ments in teaching, thoroughly equipped laboratories, extensive 
workshops, a fine gymnasium and ample playgrounds, a 
spacious campus and all else that is necessary for the comfort 
and development of the students will be provided. 

With all these advantages it is not strange then that the 
zeal of the faculty and students has arisen to the pitch of en- 
thusiasm, and that all friends of the University look forward 
with hope to this dawn of a new era. Since its inauguration 
in this city nine years ago Tulane University has been an 
element in every great measure of progress and reform. Dis- 
interested persons have asserted that it is the nucleus around 
which has crystallized most of the best scholarly effort of the 
city. I am willing to claim much less, but, though its influence 



30 High Schools in Louisiana 

is often indirect and little appreciated, it is impossible for over 
half a hundred earnest workers in any given direction not to 
effect considerable results. Remember that whatever the sum 
total of these results may be, whether great or small, they are 
in the right direction and for the enlightenment of mankind and 
the elevation of our civic life. 

I have detained this audience longer than I desired, but 
on such an occasion as this you are presumed to come in order 
to learn what the University is doing. I have given you a 
plain, business statement, which will make clear our present 
condition, and satisfy, I hope, all friends of the University, 
and I now gladly surrender my place to speakers whose 
younger voices will fall on sympathetic ears, as, indeed, they 
should; for this is really their occasion — the Commencement 
for them of earnest, manly life. 



RESOLUTIONS AND ADDRESS 



TO 



School Okkickrs and Tkachers, 



ADOPTED BY THE 



BOARD OF ADMINISTRATORS OF TULANE EDUCATIONAL 

FUND, MAY, 1893. 



In view of the fact that the amendment of the State Con- 
stitution creating Tulane University gives to the Board of Ad- 
ministrators such ''powers as may be necessary to develop, 
control, foster and maintain it as a great University in the city 
of New Orleans," the Administrators have determined upon 
carrying forward their plan of organization and developing 
its germinal features into permanent form. 

The following resolutions reported by the Committee on 
Education and adopted by the Board of Administrators embody 
the dominant principles and plan of reorganization proposed by 
the late President Gibson : 

1. The Constitutional contract between the State and this 
Board of Administrators emphasizes, as its main purpose and 
object, the duty of this Board to '* create and develop a great 
University in the city of New Orleans;" and in accordance 
therewith, as well as with the known wishes of Paul Tulane, 
this Board now recognizes and announces the creation and 
development of such an University as the proper field and 
object of its future action. 

2. High School instruction is not embraced within the 
function of an University, and the Tulane High School, which, 
up to this time, has rendered necessary and invaluable service, 
should now be discontinued, and, accordingly, the Board an- 
nounces that the same will be discontinued after the end of 



32 High Schools in Louisiana 

the ensuing session thereof terminating in June, 1894. After 
the present session no students will be admitted below the 
Intermediate grade. Scholarships thereafter granted under 
the law or by this Board will not entitle the holders to admis- 
sion below the Intermediate grade. Provision should be made 
to complete the High School instruction of all students on the 
rolls in June, 1894, who shall then have successfully passed 
examination for admission to the Sub-Freshman Class. 

3. In the meantime the President of the Universit}^ is re- 
quested to devote his attention to the consideration of the best 
means to secure the establishment of High Schools, public and 
private, in different parts of the city and State, having compe- 
tent teachers and a uniform course of studies, selected and 
adapted to prepare students for admission to the colleges of the 
University; and to formulate and recommend to the Board 
such plan for encouraging such High Schools and Academies 
as, after examination, he concludes will be most effective. 

4. The University shall comprise the following Colleges, 
viz.: (i) a College of Medicine; (2) a College of Law; (3) 
a College for the Higher Education of Women; (4) a College 
of Arts and Sciences ; (5) a College of Technology; and such 
other colleges as may hereafter be established. The first three 
colleges above named shall consist of the existing Medical De- 
partment, the Law Department, and the H. Sophie Newcomb 
College ; and, while the Board reserves their existing organiza- 
tions as subjects for future consideration and action, it is not 
deemed advisable, for the present, to interfere with them, 

5. The present system of instruction and organization of 
Tulane College shall continue until the end of the session of 
1893-94, subject to such modifications as may be deemed 
proper to prepare the way for the transition to the system pro- 
vided in the following resolutions. 

6. There shall be established, to take effect at the com- 
mencement of the session of 1894-95, two distinct colleges, 
viz.: I. A College of Arts and Sciences, devoted specially 
to training in the studies appropriate to a liberal education and 
generally within the Classical, Literary and Scientific course 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 33 

now in force in Tulane College. 2. A College of Technology, 
devoted specially to training in the application of science to the 
mechanical and other arts, and, generally, in the studies now 
embraced within the existing engineering course, and in others 
similar and cognate. Each of these colleges shall have a 
separate faculty and organization, and shall pursue courses of 
study to be prescribed by the combined Faculty of the two 
colles^es and the University Faculty proper. Until otherwise 
ordained the President of the University shall be, ex officio^ a 
member and the President of the Faculty of each of said 
colleges. The same person may be a member of each Faculty, 
and the students of both colleges may be grouped in common 
classes for instruction required in both courses, but, as rapidly 
as means admit and number of students requires, the distinct- 
ness of the two colleges shall be progressively increased. 

7. There shall be also a University Faculty proper, over 
which the President of the University shall preside, composed 
of members, who may also belong to the College Faculties, en- 
gaged in post graduate instruction which shall furnish instruc- 
tion to graduates of the colleges and of other institutions of 
like grade, in advanced courses to be prescribed by said 
University Faculty. 

8. Steps shall be at once taken to provide necessary and 
proper buildings and improvements on the grounds opposite 
Audubon Park, to which the Academical Departments of the 
University should remove as soon as completed, and not later 
than the beginning of the session of 1894-95. 

Pursuant to action of the Board of Administrators at a 
meeting held April 10, 1893, the following address was adopted 
and ordered to be printed for general circulation: 



34 High Schools of Louisiana 

ADDRESS 

OF THE 

Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund 

TO THE 

Public School Authorities, the Teachers and the People 
OF THE State of Louisiana. 

As will appear by the report and resolutions published 
herewith, this Board has resolved to discontinue the High 
School teaching which the educational conditions of our State 
imposed as a necessity heretofore, and to devote its means and 
efforts exclusively to the task of developing the higher educa- 
tion of our people. 

We now propose to confine ourselves to the purpose ex- 
pressed in our constitutional charter, which is to " establish and 
maintain a great University in the city of New Orleans." 

A complete system of education in any State involves at 
least four grades of schools, viz. : (i) Primary or Elementary 
Schools; (2) High Schools or Academies; (3) Colleges, con- 
ferring degrees certifying the essentials of a liberal education; 
(4) the University, conducting courses of the highest education 
in special branches. 

These various grades should be adapted to each other in such 
manner that each lower grade should prepare for the next higher, 
so that the student passes naturally and properly prepared from 
the Primary to the High School, from the High School or Acad- 
emy to the College, from the College to the University. 

At this day, it is an accepted truism that the State should 
assume the function of furnishing to its citizens the two first 
grades of instruction, as being the least required to fit them for 
any intelligent performance of the duties of citizenship, and 
therefore essential to the welfare of the State. Our public 
school system will be lamentably deficient until it shall establish 
not only Primary Schools, but Central High Schools, and we 
have established a standard ot admission to our colleges not 
beyond the proper grade of high school instruction. The 



AND Tui.ANE University. 35 

numerous free scholarships (one hundred and seventy-one) 
granted in our Colleges and University make it very desirable 
that the courses of instruction pursued in our Public High 
Schools should be specially adapted to prepare for those col- 
leges, because the opportunity of free education from the Pri- 
mary through the University is thus secured to many of the 
ambitious youth of the State. 

We, therefore, desire to impress upon the Public School 
authorities and the people the importance of establishing 
Public High Schools at central points throughout the State. 
and especially of adopting therein courses of study devised and 
adequate to prepare students for admission to the Colleges of 
the University, as is already done to a great extent by the ex- 
cellent Public High Schools of New Orleans. 

We have already in New Orleans several private High 
Schools and Academies, in addition to the City High School, 
which have adopted, substantially, a standard of instruction 
sufficiently high to prepare students for our colleges. The 
abolition of our High School will materially add to the pros- 
perity of these academies, and will, doubtless, cause the estab- 
lishment of others. 

We trust that private High Schools of equal grade will 
soon be established at numerous points in the State on the 
basis already indicated. 

This Board is anxious to encourage, in every way, the 
establishment of Public and Private High Schools and Acade- 
mies, which shall act as feeders to the University. 

To that end we have adopted the following measures, viz. : 

I. That if any Public or Private High School or Academ}^ 
in the State shall furnish to the President of the University 
satisfactory proof (i) that it has adopted the curriculum of 
studies -ecommended by him or its equivalent ; (2) that it has 
a corps of teachers competent for instruction therein ; (3) that 
it has enforced an adequate standard of examinations, the 
President is hereby authorized to accept the certificate of the 
principal of such school that the student has followed the 
course and passed successfully the required examinations, as 



36 High Schools in Louisiana 

entitling such student to admission to the appropriate college 
course without further preliminary examination; provided, that 
this shall not take effect until after said school shall have fur- 
nished one or more students who have successfully passed the 
ordinary entrance examination, and provided, further, that if, 
on trial, the students from such school shall prove to be in- 
sufficiently prepared, this privilege shall be promptly withdrawn 
from such school. 

2. That two scholarships with free tuition and a single 
honorarium of $150 each be offered for competition between 
students of the Public High Schools and Private Academies in 
each congressional district of the State, one to be granted to 
that student who passes the best entrance examination to the 
Freshman Class of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the 
other to that student who passes the best entrance examination 
to the Freshman Class of the College of Technology; pro- 
vided, that said students shall satisfy the president of their bona 
fide intention to remain through the college course. 

3. That two similar scholarships with like honorarium be 
offered for competition between students entering from other 
States than Louisiana. 

4. That a honorarium of $150 be granted in the Sopho- 
more Class to each of the three matriculated students who pass 
the best examination at the Freshman Finals in the College of 
Arts and Sciences, and to each of the three who shall pass the 
best examination at the Freshman Finals in the College of 
Technology; a like honorarium in the Junior Class to each of 
the three who pass the best examination at the Sophomore 
Finals in the College of Arts and Sciences, and to each of the 
three who pass best in the College of Technology; and a like 
honorarium in the Senior Class to each of the three who pass 
the best examination at the Junior Finals in the College of 
Arts and Sciences and in the College of Technology, re- 
spectively ; provided, that these measures shall not take effect 
until the beginning of the collegiate year of 1894-95, and pro- 
vided, further, that such honoraria shall be paid in such instal- 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 37 

ments in the course of the session as the Board may deem ad- 
visable. 

The Board may hereafter propose other means of aiding 
and encouraging the establishment of proper High Schools. 

Scholarships and Honoraria can not, at present, be granted 
in the College for Women; but attention is called to the ad- 
vantages of higher education offered in that institution, and 
the same considerations apply as inducements to adjust pre- 
paratory schools so as to fit girls for entrance therein. Two 
free scholarships have already been established by endowment 
by generous citizens, and it is hoped this number may be in- 
creased. 

If the public authorities and people of the State will per- 
form their duty in providing the means of preparatory instruc- 
tion, the Board pledges its best efforts to establish an institu- 
tion for the higher education of our youth which will meet all 
the manifold needs of modern life and civilization. 



38 High Schools of Louisiana 

COURSES OF STUDY 

Recommended to High Schools and Academies. 

High Schools are of intermediate grade between the 
Grammar School and the College. They should qualify for 
admission to College or give better preparation for entering 
upon the active duties of life. 

The High School should cover three years of earnest 
work in annual sessions of not less than eight months each. 

For admission to the High School pupils should be thirteen 
years of age, well drilled in reading, writing and spelling in 
the English language, with a fair knowledge of the rules of 
grammar and composition, based upon practice in Reed and 
Kellogg's Graded Lessons, or an equivalent work. They 
should be familiar with school geography and with the history 
of the principal events of the United States as far as the Civil 
War. 

In Arithmetic the pupil should be well versed in funda- 
mental operations, finding of factors and multiples, common 
and decimal fractions, denominate numbers, percentage and its 
simpler applications to interest, discount, insurance and the 
like, with ratio and proportion. 

English Grammar and Composition and Arithmetic should 
be regarded as fundamental studies for the qualification of ad- 
mission. 

The following courses of stud}^ are recommended to High 
Schools and Academies as a suitable preparation for the Fresh- 
man Class of Tulane College. But, while the order of studies 
and books indicated are suggested as desirable, they are not 
treated as obhgatory upon the schools and their candidates. 
Thoroughness of preparation and fullness of information in 
the subjects set down in the *' Conditions of Admission " are 
the tests of scholarship for entrance into Tulane College. 

Since the requirements for admission to the Freshman 
Class are as light as any College of good standing can permit, 
it becomes a matter of the first importance that the preparation 
should be thorough and satisfactory. 



AND TULANE UNIVERSITY. 39 

In the first year the studies should be the same for all 
i^upils. The following studies are recommended: 

1. Arithmetic reviewed and completed and Algebra begun. 

Text Books: Wentworth's or Wells' Practical Arith- 
metic. Wentworth's Elements of Algebra; or equiva- 
lents. 

2. History of the United States. Hansell's, Scudder's, Mont- 

gomery's or Johnston's. 

3. English Language, Reading, Dictation, Grammar. Patter- 

son's Advanced Grammar or an equivalent. 

4. Latin. Collar and Daniel's Beginner's Book, or Gilder- 

sleeve's Latin Primer. 

SECOND YEAR. 

1. Wentworth's Plane and Solid Geometry (six books); or an 

equivalent. 

2. English Analysis. Chittenden's Composition. Dictation 

Exercises. 

3. History of Louisiana (for Louisiana pupils). Outlines of 

General History, Meyers', Barnes', or Swinton's, to Mid- 
dle Ages. 

4. Greek. Beginner's Book, or Greek Primer. One Book of 

Xenophon. Alternative: Physics; Balfour-Stewart's, or 
Houston's Elements, with laboratory methods. 

5. Latin. Former book completed, followed by Gildersleeve's 

Reader and Exercise Book, or five Lives of Nepos, with 
Collar's Exercise Book and one book of Csesar; or, as an 
alternative, French. Chardenal's First French Course; 
Super's French Reader. 

THIRD YEAR. 

1. Original Composition. Dalgleish's Analysis. Brooke's 

Primer of English Literature, and Richardson's Primer of 
American Literature. 

2. History of England. Anderson's. 

3. Wentworth's or Wells' Complete Algebra, through quadratic 

equations. 



40 High Schools in Louisiana. 

4. Greek. Hadley and Allen's Grammar. Jones' Greek 

Prose Composition and Xenophon's Anabasis (three 
books) ; or, as an alternative, Elementary Chemistry? 
Roscoe's Chemistry Primer, or an equivalent, with labo- 
ratory methods. 

5. Latin. Csesar (two books) and First Book of Vergil's 

^neid with a continuation of writing Latin; or, as alter- 
native, French. Chardenal's Second French Course, 
Larive et Fleury's *' Deuxieme Annee de Grammaire," 
Reading of Nineteenth Century tales and comedies. 

It has been deemed advisable to make no requirement in 
Drawing of applicants for admission to College. But it will be 
remembered that it is one of the branches prescribed by the 
public school authorities of Louisiana, and that the most 
advanced and enlightened thought on educational matters 
throughout the United States recognizes it as an efficient agent 
in education, desirable in all cases as a mode of expression, 
and in scientific and technical studies as fundamental and abso- 
lutely necessary. Hence, it is urgently recommended to 
such schools as have adequate equipment and means that the 
instruction should be given by proper methods. The follow- 
ing is a \vell considered outline of work adapted to the three 
years of High School study above recommended. 

FIRST YEAR. 

Freehand Drawing from Elementary Forms and from Ob- 
jects and Plants. 

SECOND YEAR. 

Freehand Drawing from Objects, Plants and Casts of His- 
torical Ornament. Elements of Design. Problems of Plane 
Geometry. Constructive Drawing. 

^ THIRD YEAR. 

Freehand and Mechanical Perspective, Projections and 
Developments of Solids. Design. Constructive Drawing to 
Scale, 






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